When I Stop Talking, You'll Know I'm Dead: Useful Stories From a Persuasive Man by Jerry Weintraub

Author:Jerry Weintraub [Weintraub, Jerry]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Biography, United States, Autobiography, General, Biography & Autobiography, Performing Arts, Film & Video, Business, Entertainment & Performing Arts, Direction & Production, Film & Video - Direction & Production, Weintraub; Jerry, Weintraub, Entertainment & Performing Arts - General, Biography: general, Personal Memoirs, Individual Directors And Producers, Motion picture producers and directors, Jerry, Motion picture industry, Individual Director
ISBN: 9780446548151
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Published: 2010-04-06T07:00:00+00:00

Once I was established in the entertainment business, I began to see the possibility of shows everywhere. All life was theater and I wanted to put it on a stage and sell tickets. I wanted to produce everything. This is when Billy Friedkin started calling me "Presents." As in, "Hey, Presents!" "How you doing, Presents?" I wanted to put the world under a marquee that read: "Jerry Weintraub Presents." I began to expand away from concerts, pursuing fantasies of the Great White Way. Like every kid from the boroughs, I dreamed of Broadway. I put on a few small shows but realized that to be good, I would need a teacher and guide. If you want to learn, find a person who knows and study him or her.

Which is how one day in 1968, I found myself in the office of Frank Loesser, that Broadway legend, author of, among others, Where's Charley?, How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, and, my favorite, Guys and Dolls. Frank Loesser worked in movies, too--he had been under contract with Universal--but he will always be associated with the theater.

He worked in a big office on 57th Street. There was an upright piano and a view of the city. New York is like an infinite library, with everyone you ever wanted to meet tucked in a little room. Knock on this door, Sinatra answers. Knock on that door, Presley answers. Knock on this door, Frank Loesser answers.

"What the hell can I do for you, kid? Did they send you for the dry cleaning?"

"No, my name is Jerry Weintraub."

"Okay, Jerry Weintraub. What do you want?"

I told him he was my favorite writer in the world, that Guys and Dolls was my favorite show, that I was a producer, and was going to produce on Broadway, and told him that he should produce a show with me.

"Why would I do that, kid?"

"Because I'm going to be a great Broadway producer."

Loesser laughed. "All right," he said, "but why not tell me what you are now."

"I told you," I said. "I'm Jerry Weintraub."

He thought a moment, noodled on the piano, notes drifting across the room, then said, "Tell you what. There is a show in London called Canterbury Tales." It's in previews. Hot as a pistol. Goddamn, I want to stage that in New York. But so does every other producer on Broadway. You go to London and get me the rights to that show, and we'll produce it together. We'll be partners.

"We got a deal?" he asked.

"Hell, yes, we got a deal."

"And you are again...?"

"Jerry Weintraub."

"Okay, Jerry. Go get it."

Loesser said everything but "fetch."

I had a big career on Broadway later, and owned a stake in several theaters with Jimmy Nederlander, who ran one of the great organizations in the history of the business. His name is up there with the Shuberts. But this is how I started, in that office off Broadway, with Loesser calling for this trick: Go to London and snatch the prize from the jaws of a dozen hungry producers.

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